International Organizations and the Analysis of Economic Policy, 1919-1950

This book is the culmination of eight years' research. It began with correspondence between the authors and Janie Gummer, the daughter of
E. J. Riches, in 1993. Janie informed us that Riches, international civil
servant and former ILO Deputy Director, was close to death and that
some of his personal papers may be of interest to historically minded
economists at the University of Auckland. These papers alerted us to
the work of economists at the International Labor Organization. We
were especially stimulated by conversations with A. W. (Bob) Coats when
he visited the Antipodes in the mid-1990s; his unflagging enthusiasm
for extending work on the intellectual history of economics to include
the work completed by special cadres of economists and social scientists
in both government and international agencies had a lasting influence,
as the following pages attest.

The path to the final manuscript has been made easier by the wealth
of comments from countless academic colleagues. We acknowledge the
benefits of comments and conversations with conference participants
at the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia conference
(Freemantle), the European History of Economic Thought conference
(Marseille), and two Economic Society of Australia Annual conferences (Canberra and Melbourne). More vigorous exchanges in seminars
at the Australian National University, Duke University, King's College
Cambridge University, University of Auckland, University of New
South Wales, and University of Western Australia have sharpened our
arguments and challenged our framework.

Research funding from the Australian Research Council Small Grant
scheme (S6204012) helped us travel to key archival sources in Geneva
where we received enthusiastic support from archival staff. They were
not generally accustomed to having economists explore their records and
that indicates just how much modern practitioners in the discipline have
forgotten the value of these rich data sets. We are obliged in particular

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